Columns & Editorials

We were excited to hear, about a year ago, that one of our favorite emcee's were coming out with new music. AHMAD, known for his classic hip hop single "Back In The Day", saw platinum success at the age of 17 in 1993. AHMAD also teamed up with West Coast favorites Saafir and Ras Kass to do the song "Come Widdit" for Street Fighter's motion picture soundtrack. After touring the world on the success of the single and earning his stripes as a respected emcee with a classic hip hop song, AHMAD abruptly quit music. AHMAD was finding that he was not fulfilled by the fame, money, and touring and he gave his life to the Lord. A few years later AHMAD started the band that many grew to know and love by the name of 4th Avenue Jones. 4th Ave released music on Interscope as well as Gotee. After a strong effort but less of a pay off, the band went on an indefinite hiatus, and AHMAD returned to college.
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Rhymefest dropped this gem of a video and song on the Interwebs today in which he takes aim at the "Prosperity Gospel" message of televangelists and TV preachers who seem to exploit people looking for genuine salvation.

The general market, Chicago-based MC has covered Christian themes and topics in his raps before, having co-authored Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" which won a Grammy in 2005.
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The journey of exploring a Christian bookstore for the latest rock, hip-hop or pop album always includes a visitation of the infamous comparison chart. The chart's primary objective is to compare mainstream and Christian artistic styles to conclude whether they can be placed in the same category. The music industry as a whole likes to categorize artists to appeal to a particular fanbase.

In the last decade the most duplicated trend in Christian hip hop has been lyrical theology. Aspiring emcees formulate their lyrics in the vein of established Christian Hip Hop artists like Cross Movement, Shai Line and Trip Lee. One failed observation on the part of the aspiring emcee is that the mainstream community listens to the music before the lyrics, while our community listens to the lyrics before the music. Mainstream watches for the music or the presentation and then hears the lyrical content. Inspiration can be defined as, "being breathed upon; resulting in a burst of creativity". Copying can be defined as, "duplicating information, work or object while not using the same process that originally created it". Have you ever played music for a person that's not familiar with Christian hip hop and their reaction is "the rapper sounds like______"? When Allen Iverson performs a cross over on an opponent you never hear, "His cross-over is like_____? Why is that?

Mixtape's have been around since the late 70's, and many artists have found exposure and even gotten recording contracts from being featured on a mixtape. The mixtape in secular hip hop has been a proven outlet to promote your music in a cost effective way. Christian Hip Hop has been tapped into the mixtape game for several years now, however most are utilized to raise funds. With that said, I want to explore another function that Christian artists can use mixtape's for, namely, evangelism. Mixtape's can serve a similar purpose as like chick tracts. They have a message and can be handed out like tracts, anywhere to anyone.

Why aren't people like Lecrae winning!? There is frustration that KJ-52 won the Dove Award for 'Rap / Hip Hop Album of the Year'. KJ-52 now has 5 Dove Awards. There have been complaints over the years, including this year, that KJ-52 won because he is white, because he has the most sales, politics, etc. While some of that may be an influence, most or all of it is based on ignorance. There are requirements and criteria (similiar to Grammy's, Stellar's, etc.) that have to be met for artists to be considered for nominations.

NCAA Basketball isnt the only March madness that takes place annually. Down in the capitol city of Texas there are nearly 100,000 people that congregate annually at the world renown event known as South by Southwest.

For those that dont know, South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of interactive, film, music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin, Texas. Each of the three parts run relatively independently, with different start and end dates. It has been around for 23 years and it still going strong.

SXSW is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with nearly 2,000 performers playing in more than 80 venues around Austin over four days, in March.

And though dominated by music, SXSW also features a robust film festival and an innovative, interactive technology conference, where techies from around the country showcase their latest software, gadgets and gaming technology. It is a well known fact that Twitter launched at the SXSW Interactive media conference in 2007.

Make no mistake what happens at SXSW impacts the world. Whether for better or for worse. Recognizing this, one thing I observed as I attended this years conference, was that the Christian Hip Hop culture was absent outside of the 2nd annual, 'The Life in Hip Hop' concert. Im talking about the wisdom filled workshops. Im talking about the divine appointments that are waiting to be made. Im talking about the life changing conversations that we could be having with people.

Since Christian hip hop's inception, the lack of quality has been commented on by Christians and non Christians alike. I have been involved in Christian hip hop for the last 10 years, and the complaints remain the same. Mark LaFay, one of my best friends, and manager to Christian bands Haste The Day, Gwen Stacy, etc., turned me onto Christian hip hop for the first time back in 2000. The first taste of Christian hip hop I got was John Reuben's song "Do Not" and Mars iLL's album 'Raw Material'. After listening to these samples and then searching out other releases in Christian hip hop, I soon found out that those were the exception and not the norm. The poor quality and blatant copying of popular secular hip hop has been a common topic over the years, but we can save it for another time. I will transition out of this intro on a good note though, and say that I definitely have seen great improvements sonically. In this article, I want to focus on the design and packaging of Christian hip hop products.